A How to Harden Steel

The summer holiday has begun and sixteen-year old Milan Petráň is by the waterside with his friends, waiting for the arrival of Květa whom he is fond of. But a messenger arrives on a motorcycle telling him his presence is urgently required at the Regional Committee of the Czechoslovak Youth Movement. The urgency of the message sharply contrasts with the lazy atmosphere among the functionaries. The head secretary sends Milan to the neighbouring villages to appeal to the members of the cooperatives to fulfil the harvest plans with prescribed mottos from a car with a loudspeaker. Milan first takes umbrage at the cynical comments of the car's driver but when he meets the hard working villagers and their justified mockery face to face, he decides to wrap up his "strategic task". In the evening, he runs into the head secretary on his way to cinema with his wife and briefs him about his failure. The secretary's indifferent reaction convinces Milan that the whole undertaking was nothing but a matter of formality. In no time, the disappointed young man meets his friends, and finds Květa nestled against one of them. The bitter Milan goes home and, on the way, writes his opinion in chalk on the houses. First there comes B, then O on another wall, then double L, then O, C on yet another, followed by the letters K and S.